will remain Sacred and Venerable whatever I have proved him to be nor lose any more of the respect which is due to it because he is a Bishop than human Nature can lose of the Honour and Dignity which is due to it because he is a Man Though Bishops turn Rebels and make Rebels and Outlaws Bishops yet I must reverence the Function by reason I think it of Divine Institution But notwithstanding all my Reverence for it I think it ought not to be a Cover and Protection for ill Men who pervert whole Nations and Churches especially for insolent and cruel Men who persecute their Brethren for no other Reason but because they profess and practise the same Doctrines which they themselves formerly taught the People and because they have endeavoured to convince the World by their Books That these Men are Apostates and have done both our Church and Religion much more harm than they can do it good These are the Traytors to that very Order which some of them have Usurped and seem ready to give up the uninterrupted Succession upon which the Priesthood depends if they may but by gaining one Sort of Dissenters better secure their Baronies and Revenues which they mind more than the Honour of their Order or the Catholick Rights of the Church What else means their Courting at such a fulsom Rate those in one Kingdom who have destroyed it in another Why else are they so ready to treat it away under a Pretence of Union with Dissenters and in Complement to Foreign Churches Why contrary to former Times do they suffer some French Ministers who have not had Episcopal Ordination to Preach and Administer the Sacraments at the Church in the Savoy and its Dependences which by the Act of Uniformity is a Member of the Church of England What means this new Discovery of Comprehension in so many of the late Funeral Sermons which the Convocation rejected Why do they exhort Lay-men to support and Clergy-men to comply with Presbytery in Scotland as I have shewed our Preacher and his Heroe did Or lastly What means the new Hypothesis of * See the Book of the Revelation paraphrased with Annotations on each Chapter Lond. printed by Rich. Wellington at the Lute in St. Paul's Churchyard 1694. Witnessing Churches That because the Churches in Savoy and France which have no Bishops have born their Testimony against Popery therefore Bishops by uninterrupted Succession and Priests of Episcopal Ordination which have been the signal Blessing of the Church of England are not necessary to the Church At the Rate that Annotator writes in very many Places of his Book and Preface we must blend our pure Orders and Priesthood not only with Ministers who derive their Mission from Presbyters but with Ministers who derive them ultimately from meer Lay-men as many of the first Reformers both in France and Savoy were Nay at this rate of talking I know not what is necessary to Christianity either as a Sect professing Doctrines or a Society which Antiquity so much undervalued by him called the Catholick Church For Anabaptists Quakers and Socinians have born their Testimony against Popery and will bear it and therefore in his wild way of Writing not only Bishops but Priests nor Episcopal Orders only but all Orders with Infant Baptism and the Lord's Supper may be parted with as Temporary Ordinances for comprehension of all Sects that pretend to be Christian and witnesses against the Church of Rome Nay this dangerous Hypothesis of the witnessing Churches may for any Thing I see to the contrary be improved to the Advantage of the Jews to prove them to be the Church of God For they have born and will bear their Testimony against Popery and great Numbers of them have died Martyrs against it in the Inquisition I need but mention the Mahumetans who abhor Popery for its Image-Worship and the Invocation of Saints as much as the Witnessing Churches And therefore it is a mad way of arguing to cure us of our Fondness as he is pleased to call it for our uninterrupted Episcopal Succession because the Witnessing Churches have the Misfortune to want it This is the Argument of the Fox in the Fable who had lost his Tail and had Men argued in this manner in the Primitive Times they might have laid aside both the Sacraments in the Church because great Numbers of Catechumens died Martyrs or Witnesses against the Idolatry of Rome Pagan which notwithstanding all the Comments and Annotations of some Men I believe was much more Abominable than that of the modern Papal Rome This Annotator I take to be one of those Men who drive on for Comprehension and with those Latitudinarians it was and more particularly Dr. Tillotson that Dr. Sherlock (a) Temple Serm. upon the Death of the Queen p. 16 17. saith Their Majesties and more particularly the Queen who had more leisure for such Thoughts were inspired with great and pious Designs to serve the Church of England whatever some Men might suspect though it may be not perfectly in their own way But why does he not tell us what this way was And whether it was consistent with his Queries his Book of Union and Communion and his Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet's unreasonableness of Separation from the Church of England Dr. Bates the Non-conformist tells us (b) Sermon upon the Death of the Queen p. 20. It was to unite Christians in Things essential to Christianity but he doth not tell us what those Essential Things were or whether they were Things Essential to Christianity as a Society as well as a Sect. But I desire plainly to know what those Things were which they thought Essential to Christianity and in which they were to be United For I am afraid they had a Design to form an Union against the Catholick Church and in order to it give up some Things as not Essential which many as learned and good Men as Dr. T. and these Doctors would have thought Essential to Christianity and that their parting with them would have involved in it a parting with the Lord's Day and Infant Baptism nay all Baptism and the Lord's Supper with the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and have done no good Office to the Power of the Keys nor to the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures which depends so much upon Tradition That they themselves alone are not alone sufficient to prove it without the Testimony of the Church It was my Design in writing these Discourses to aim at all the Men of this broad Way of Union as well as against those Two whom I have detected and thereby to warn the rest of the Clergy against them For God be thanked the main Body of our Clergy are Men of quite different Spirits they do not persecute their old Brethren for their strict Doctrines but pity and help to support them They know by Experience how hard it was for Conscience to overcome the Difficulties of the new Oath and therefore
he will enable me to suffer whatever may be necessary for those great Ends and that he will incline you to publish your Reasons or Repentance The Gentleman who wrote this Letter to Dr. T. is a Person of great Candour and Integrity and was once a great Admirer of him and from his Example we may see what a mighty Scandal the Doctor 's Apostacy hath been to the very Notion of all Religion as well as that professed in the Church of England And I have heard him say since Dr. Tillotson's Death that he thinks he was an Atheist as much as a Man could be though the gravest said he certainly that ever was and this Opinion which this Gentleman and many others have of him is owing to that great and scandalous Blemish of his Life his Apostacy from his own Doctrines about Non-resistance and the Nature of Religion and this foul Blemish which hath tempted that serious and worthy Gentleman and others to question Religion it self upon his Account is like to be an everlasting Blot upon his Memory unless his Funeral Preacher or Dr. Sherlock or Dr. Pain who have mentioned him in their Sermons with so much Respect will please to write a Discourse on purpose to reconcile the Contradiction between his late Practice and former Principles and Precepts which he himself though called on in so solemn a manner had not the Hardiness to do I beg Mr. Manningham's who is one of his Doctors Pardon for not mentioning of him among the others for he perhaps hath found out a way to reconcile them because he Sainted him in his Prayer before the Sermon which he preached to the Sons of the Clergy-men at Bow But if he is pleased to undertake a Discourse of that Nature he must take care not to forget himself who in a Sermon at the Rolls while the Convention was a sitting said That a Convention of English Subjects could no more make a King than a Convention of Atoms make the World That which gave the great Offence to the Gentleman whose Letter I have cited was the Inconsistency of the Doctor 's Practices with his Principles since the Revolution to which I must further add That his Practices long before it were not well reconcilable with them nor they with his Practices And of this I will give one Instance and that was his great Intimacy with the late Lord Shaftsbury and particularly about that time when he preached on the Fifth of November 1678. and his Acting in consort with him then in upholding the Pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth to be the King 's Legitimate Son and giving credit to those innumerable Lyes which were invented at Thanet House to support the Credit of the Popish Plot. I question very much whether more Lyes and Calumnies against the King and the Government were then dispersed from his or my Lord Shaftsbury's House I have particular Reason for what I say for I was then well acquainted with a Person who was very intimate with one of his Favourite Acquaintance to whom he used to go very often in great kindness to disabuse his Credulity and confute those Stories which he used to hear in Amen Corner often to his disturbance He was pleased to call that Gentleman his Sive because he was wont to separate the Tares from the Wheat and the Bran from the Flour of his Stories and by conversing with him I came to know more of the great Intercourse and Correspondency there was between my Lord Shaftsbury and the Dean of Canterbury than was commonly known The Dean used to go in those Days Three or Four times a Week to my Lord's House but very privately and there often met among others one of his Relations a great Lord of the Court whom I think not fit to Name My Lord D. who was then committed to the Tower by the Malice of his Enemies knew well how much the Dean was in their Interests and particularly the great Esteem he was in among those who were the Confidents at Thanet House This obliged his Lordship to write to him to entreat him to do him all the good Offices he could among that Party The Dean upon this went to wait upon his Lordship in the Tower but how far he engaged in that Negotiation for my Lord's Service I cannot now remember but the Event shew'd that there was little Effect of it Remembering these Stories and the many slanderous Reports that had come from his House and used to be told upon his Authority against the King and Government I was curious to see his Sermon against Evil Speaking upon Tit. 3.2 which was occasioned by some ill Reports and Reflections that went abroad of himself and this Government more especially in the unlicensed Prints of the Times There I was very much pleased to find him condemning Evil Speaking as a detestable Vice whether it were by being the first Authors of ill Reports or by relating them from others by speaking before a Man's Face or behind his Back directly or obscurely by way of Insinuation by down-right Reproach or with a Preface of Commendation c. More especially was I pleased and astonished withal to find him setting forth the heinous Nature of reviling those whom God hath placed in Authority and to slander the Footsteps of the Lord 's Anointed I could not but admire the Power of Conscience and of Divine Truth to extort this from a Man who had been so guilty of it as you shall find by the following Story King Charles the Second taking Notice of the false and scandalous Report of his Marriage with the Duke of Monmouth's Mother made a Declaration on the Sixth of January 1679. written with his own Hand in these Words following I do here declare in the Presence of Almighty God that I never was Married nor gave any Contract to any Woman whatsoever but to my Wife Queen Catherine to whom I am now Married This Declaration was made in the Presence of W. Cant. H. Finch C. H. Coventry J. Williamson In March following his Majesty made a more publick Declaration in the Privy Council to strengthen the former in these Words For the avoiding any Dispute which may happen in time to come concerning the Succession to the Crown I do here declare in the Presence of Almighty God that I never made nor gave any Contract of Marriage nor was Married to any Woman whatsoever but to my present Wife Queen Catherine now Living Whitehall the Third of March 1679. This Declaration attested by Sixteen Privy Counsellers was entered in the Council Book and Copies of it quickly got abroad and as it came to Dr. Tillotson's Hands sooner we may be sure than most Men's so he had the Ingenuity to note it for an Equivocal Declaration As if the King contrary to the Punctation of it and the common Usage of English Speech had meant it in this Sense I do here declare in the Presence of Almighty God that I never made nor gave any Contract
and cannot be ascribed to any other Original but that the Apostles every where established it as a Fence about the Gospel which they planted so that our Religion and Government are to be reckoned Twins born at the same Time and both derived from the same Fathers Therefore it will perhaps be necessary in order to the giving a fuller and amiabler Prospect of that Apostolical Constitution c. And if it is an Apostolical Constitution with what Face or Conscience could he solicit the Duke of Hamilton to adhere to those who declare it to be a Diabolical and Antichristian Usurpation But if it is not and by consequence not an Institution of unalterable Right Why do we continue it Why is the Church troubled with two Orders of Priesthood when one would serve It hath cost this Nation much Blood and Treasure to support it The Earl of Strafford might have had his Life if he would have bought it at so dear a Hate as to perswade King Charles the First to consent to the Abolishing of it That blessed Prince died a Martyr for it And our Primate of everlasting Memory Archbishop Laud was sacrificed for it And yet alas it is now abolished in one Kingdom and disgraced and polluted with Schism in the other two And the very Foundation of it hath been and is still an undermining under the popular Pretences of tender Methods and pious Designs Let the Observation of the Lord's Day Infant Baptism the Two Sacraments the Doctine of the Holy Trinity which stand upon the same bottom be all treated away with it To dispence with those as well as with this will make the Union yet more Glorious and Comprehensive and more worthy of the pious Undertakers For I know no Reason why the Anabaptists Quakers and Socinians should not also be taken in But as to my own particular I must here declare That I am for pure Catholick and unmixt Communion and if after this designed Comprehension of the Sects there is to be found but One such Church of Two or Three in what corner of the Land soever I will join my self to that CHAP. III. HAVING shewed in the first Chapter that although the Character which Dr. Burnet hath given of Dr. Tillotson were true yet it is not to be believed upon his Authority and having also shewed by many Instances in the second that it was not a true and just Character of him but much above his Merits I now proceed in this according to the Method mentioned in the Introduction to animadvert upon several other Passages in his Funeral Sermon which I think my Undertaking obliges me not to pass over without some Remarks I shall begin with that strange Expression which he useth of the Apostle who (a) P. 7. he saith had large Thoughts concerning the Idol Feasts and Meats offered to Idols As this is a crude and indecent way of Speaking of an Apostle so it is groundless and false he having stated the Case of Idol Feasts and of Eating of Meats and Drinking of Drinks that have been offered up in Sacrifice to Idols with all the Strictness that the Nature of them required For first as to the Idol Feasts or of Eating and Drinking at the Feasts in the Heathen Temples which were joyned to the Sacrifices offered unto Idols he determines it to be unlawful in a two fold Respect First with respect to the Substance of the Action as it as it was (b) 1 Cor. 10.20 21. Demonolatry or worshipping of Devils and holding Communion with them which therefore provoked the Lord to Jealousie when those who drank his Cup would drink the Cup of Devils and partakers of his Table would also partake of the Tables of Devils Secondly he determines it to be unlawful with respect to the circumstance or consequence of the action because those pretenders to knowledge among the Christians who frequented Idol-Feasts did not only confirm the Gentiles in their Idolatry and harden the Jews in their unblief but ‖ 1 Cor. VIII v. 9 10 11 12. also by their contagious Examples drew the weaker Christians to pollute themselves with Demonolatry or Communion with Devils and so were answerable to God for causing their Brethren to perish for whom Christ died And now let any serious man consider this determination of the Apostle against Christians going to Idol Temples to eat at Idol Feasts either with respect to the substance or Circumstance of the thing and then let him tell me if it is not as strict and free from latitude or largeness of thought as the Doctrine of worshiping the one true God and having no other Gods but him The like strictness we shall also find in determining the case of Christians eating of meats which had been offered unto Idolls at their own or at their unbelieving Friends Houses For it seems part of the Sacrifices which had been offered unto Idolls were often sold to the Butchers by the Idol-Priests from which arose two questions among the Christians of these times one whereof was whether they ought to eat what was bought in the Shambles at their own Houses Because what they eat might perhaps have been such portions of the Sacrifices as the Idol Priests had sold to the Butchers and the other was whether they ought to eat at their unconverted Friends or Relations Houses of every thing that was set before them without asking if it had been any part of those Sacrifices which had been offered unto Idolls The particular reason of this later question was as I conceive because the Gentiles esteemed those portions of Idol Sacrifices as more holy than common flesh and would be sure to buy them for their Feasts and Entertainment if they could get them To these two questions the Apostle answers in general that it was lawful for them to enjoy any of God's Creatures none of them being in their own nature impure and that therefore they might safely eat whatsoever was sold in the Market without thinking themselves bound in conscience to enquire whether any thing they met with in the Shambles or were to eat at their own or their Friends Houses were portions of Idol Sacrifices or no But then if any man told them that such and such meats had been offered unto Idols then they were neither to buy them in the Market nor eat of them at their own or at their Friends Houses for fear of giving * 1 Cor. X v. 25 26 27 28 29 31 32. offence to others whether Believers or Unbelievers First to Believers especially of the weaker sort who seeing them buy or eat what they had been told was offer'd unto Idols might from the former relation those portions had unto the Idol think they worshipped the Idol and so be encourag'd to eat against their Consciences and perhaps proceed further to eat at the Idol Feasts which was downright Idolatry Secondly To Unbelievers Jews or Gentiles the former whereof coming to know that Christians bought or eat what had